Graphene oxide 2D films integrated with nanowires and ring resonators for enhanced nonlinear optics

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that integrating graphene oxide films with nanowires and ring resonators significantly enhances their nonlinear optical properties, including Kerr nonlinearity and four-wave mixing, through experimental methods on CMOS-compatible devices.

Contribution

The study introduces a transfer-free, layer-by-layer GO coating technique to enhance nonlinear optics in various integrated photonic devices.

Findings

Spectral broadening factor of 4.34 in GO-coated SOI nanowires

20-fold increase in nonlinear figure of merit for silicon nanowires

Up to 10.3 dB increase in FWM conversion efficiency in ring resonators

Abstract

We report enhanced nonlinear optics in nanowires, waveguides, and ring resonators by introducing layered two-dimensional (2D) graphene oxide (GO) films through experimental demonstration. The GO films are integrated on silicon-on-insulator nanowires (SOI), high index doped silica glass, and silicon nitride (SiN) waveguides and microring resonators (MRRs), to demonstrate an improved optical nonlinearity including Kerr nonlinearity and four-wave mixing (FWM). By using a large-area, transfer-free, layer-by-layer GO coating method with photolithography and lift-off processes, we integrate GO films on these complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible devices. For SOI nanowires, significant spectral broadening of optical pulses in GO-coated SOI nanowires induced by self-phase modulation (SPM) is observed, achieving a high spectral broadening factor of 4.34 for a device with a patterned film including 10 layers of GO. A significant enhancement in the nonlinear figure of merit (FOM) for silicon nanowires by a factor of 20 is also achieved, resulting in a FOM > 5. For Hydex and SiN waveguides, enhanced FWM in the GO-coated waveguides is achieved, where conversion efficiency (CE) enhancements of up to 6.9 dB and 9.1 dB relative to the uncoated waveguides. For MRRs, an increase of up to ~10.3 dB in the FWM CE is achieved due to the resonant enhancement effect. These results reveal the strong potential of GO films to improve the nonlinear optics of nanowires, waveguides, and ring resonators.